From an article by bellebouche at the NHF forum.
A long time coming.. but our grey water management system took a massive leap forward this weekend… we completed the major earthworks for a reed bed.
This project started a good year or so ago… it does seem to have taken us forever but in that time we've made progress and our slow-but-sure development has left us set up for the future. I've gradually built enough infrastructure near the house to take 'feeds' from assorted bath/shower/sink outlets into a pipework matrix that will feed down to the reed bed. In addition I've also built a series of 'local cache' stores for rainwater runoff that when the assorted 1200l worth of water butts overflow they will flush through the grey water store and down into the reed bed.
Back to the reed bed.
We have previously done everything by hand but it was clear that a man+digger was in order for the main bed. We also used the opportunity to have a major trench (a good 20M+) dug down through to the bed. In not much more than two hours our minidigger man effected a massive transformation - it was amazing to watch. I'm particularly thankful that he was able to shift a couple of giant granite boulders that would quite frankly have been show-stoppers if I'd attempted it manually. The best €20/hr I've ever spent. A complete contrast to (foolishly) doing a similar job by hand that took three of us 11 days. 33 man days!
The reed bed done he then dug a long 30M 'dry river bed' for us as the outflow from the reedbed that will link down to our source where we have a permanent 50,000 litre hole full of water for irrigating the potager.
The bed is tucked away in a corner of the garden
The digger quickly shifted the surface weeds
The bed starts to take shape… this is about1/3rd dug out so far. the finished thing should be 4mx7mx0.6m (ish!)
The downpipe trench that will run adjacent to our orchard and act as the feed for the reedbed.
Back up towards the house and a freshly dug trench = lots of worms. A chicken thinks Christmas day has arrived!
Managed to buy (for €12!) a flexible 50Mx40mm drainpipe to link the up-at-the-house waterworks down to the reedbed. Plumbed in and buried alongside an electrical cable in its own funky french conduit. "Just in Case" we ever put any small wind turbine down that way.
The reedbed promptly filled up. Actually overflowing on half a dozen occasions throughout the winter. Lesson learned here. I failed hopelessly in trying to understand how much rainwater we have. Full marks for Mme Bellebouche for insisting that we dig a 'dry river bed' as the outflow. I'm collecting rainwater from just the rear of the main house. 180M2 of surface area. All plans for collecting from the barns have been abandoned until a major rethink comes up with another bright idea. I'm sure someone who is good at fluid dynamics, peak rainfall modeling and pipe diameters could come up with a smart idea of how to deal with this!
Rather pleasingly as we dug the bed down to a layer of semi-permeable rock type stuff it's holding it's load (guesstimate 18,000 litres) rather well.
Sourced some seeds for Phragmites Australis in the autumn and sowed. Germination rate = almost ZERO. Have to start again now. This is a bit of a setback.
Frogs have taken up residence in the new pond. This pleases me enormously.
Have landscaped the area over the winter to integrtae it into that corner of the garden. Given that the surrounding area will leach excess water all year long we will be planting with trees to surround and help transpiration. Have a local willow (unknown variety) and a eucalyptus (Niphophilia) to help.
